


Just a Boy

by dramady



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-04
Updated: 2010-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramady/pseuds/dramady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's always thinking about it. Everyone else forgets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Boy

Everyone forgets sometimes. No, not sometimes. All the time. For all of John's life, he's lived for the future. What he _will_ become. What he _has to_ become. To save mankind. To fight the machines. To rescue the world. They forget that he's only a kid.

He's so tired of hearing that-- that he's the Future-- that sometimes--only sometimes-- he wants to just...Okay. It's embarrassing, right? But he just wants to be a _boy_. He wants to be learning how to drive, not having learned years ago, and be thinking about asking Cheri to the prom. He wants, sometimes, to not know how to assemble and disassemble a gun in under a minute. He wants to not know how to hack into the DoD mainframe.

It's like this other John Connor is around him all the time and he's so tired of it that sometimes he could just _rip_ something, tear it, _destroy_ something. He _hates_ that John Connor. It's pretty clear that _that_ John Connor is kind of an asshole and if that's who he's going to become, he's less than thrilled.

Except it wouldn't make any difference at all, if he got mad and railed against things that are beyond his control. He'd still be _John Connor_ and he'd still have to be the Future Savior of Mankind.

They all forget that he's only sixteen years old. He wants to kiss Cheri. He wants to watch movies, maybe even skip school one day. Sneak beer and drink it with Morris until he barfs. Sometimes, he wants to be normal, but he's 200% sure that he wouldn't know normal if it stood in front of him and declared itself.

See, that's the other thing. He's very aware of himself. Every action he takes, almost every _breath_, he knows. _When you're thirty... In the future...._ On and on and on until he wants to scream.

He thinks he knows the _other_ John Connor pretty well. Which is handy since he's going to _become_ him and all. _That_ John Connor likes beer and he trusts some machines. He's able to build a machine that can send people back in time. He has some friends, or so Cameron's told him. He doesn't let people close. He's never safe. Skynet has spent his whole life trying to kill him.

Sometimes, he feels _bad_ for that John Connor. His life sucks. Of course, Derek's here to remind him that _life_ sucks then too, so _that_ John Connor isn't alone.

_That_ John Connor knows Kyle. This factoid trips John up sometimes and he feels this ache in his chest. He's read enough psychology to know that he's lacking a strong parental male in his life. Derek definitely doesn't fill the bill mainly because he doesn't want to. Even though he took care of his brother, he for sure doesn't see himself as the father type. Charlie's been warned away. John misses Charlie at odd times, liked the way he put his hand around the back of John's neck and made him feel safe for a few seconds.

John also knows, from his books, that his mother's distance, as well as the time they spent apart while she was locked up don't let them have the "normal" (there's that word again) mother-child bond. He misses that, too. Not that any sixteen year old boy is going to go crying to his mommy, but John wishes that she knew how to make something more than pancakes and that there were times when her tone wasn't always so... strident. That when she hugged him, it wasn't because she was checking to make sure he was still alive.

He wants to read books like _Catcher In the Rye_ and not think, like he has since he could read, what message the book holds for his future. Are there even books after Judgment Day? The people that are sent back aren't big readers. He can still, if he closes his eyes, remember his mom's voice as she read to him when he was little. Her voice wasn't as rough then as it is now. It was more musical. He vows to himself to make sure to read, in the Future.

Does Sarah ever regret? Wish to be normal? There's no way in hell he can ask her that. They don't talk like that anyway. Another thing he wishes for. For her to sit on the edge of his bed and they make small talk, about their days, where she doesn't get Pizza Day wrong because she's so busy trying to change the Future that she can't keep track of the present.

John can't talk to Cameron about these things. She'd just say something technical and vacuous that misses the point of his question by feet not miles. He'd sigh, she'd ask why he sighs, eventually, he'd get a "thank you for explaining." It's...tiring.

He's rarely alone. And often, when he's not alone, he's watched. He thinks he should've gotten used to it, but he hasn't. It makes jerking off a real challenge. More often than not, that takes place in the shower with the bathroom door locked, hoping to hell he doesn't get caught.

If he was _normal_, would he have had sex already? John spends a lot of time wondering about sex. How it feels, that kind of thing. He could ask Derek just to see his uncle splutter and then probably go into _way_ too much graphic detail, which isn't really what John wants to know anyway.

John looks at Cameron sometimes and wonders. Did he build her like that? With those breasts? Or was she converted like that? Was there a real woman out there who looked like Cameron? What sound would she make if...

Okay, that's when he creeps _himself_ out. He might be a freak, but he's not a freak who's desperate enough to have sex with a machine.

Somehow, he realizes that if he asked Derek, his uncle would find a way for him to get laid. But that's not what John wants. He wants to date a girl and kiss her, then touch her breast, then follow the natural progression from there. He wonders what it's like to, like, _cuddle_ with someone. He wonders what it's like to not know the escape route from every room he's in.

Sometimes, he looks at his classmates and he feels sorry for them. Sometimes, he envies them. Sometimes he wants to warn them; _Don't get too comfortable. All this will be gone and you'll be dead in a few years. If you're alive, look for me._ But, as always, he never says a word. His sense of humor isn't well-developed enough to be able to play something like that off as a joke. Would he have a sense of humor if he was _normal_? Would Sarah?

There are too many questions. Someone his age shouldn't have so many deep, philosophical questions. Or he should have questions more like "does she like me?" and "did you do your trig homework?"

Sometimes he wonders if other sixteen-year-olds question their very existence as much as he does. Maybe he'd be bored by it all. Maybe he'd think it's all mundane and stupid. But he'd like to have a chance to think that.

He's _sixteen_. They all forget that sometimes. John _never_ forgets, not for a day. Not for an hour. He doesn't want to. Because soon enough, he'll be _that_ John Connor.

Whether he likes it or not.


End file.
